Remote access and administration of computers is an important activity in networking technologies. The ability to administer and manage computing resources from a remote location has enabled productivity gains and operational cost decreases. However, authentication is a necessary process where remote addresses and systems are used. There are vulnerabilities in networked computing that can be exploited by remotely probing or scanning communications ports on a host, client, server, or computer. If exploited, these vulnerabilities can enable an unauthenticated remote address to gather and exploit information about a particular system and/or services configuration.
Remote port scanning of a target networked computer or host can enable an outside entity to gain information that can be used to launch a directed attack or hack against the host. A remote address can access sensitive data or insert malicious or destructive code segments such as a virus or worm in order to manipulate, corrupt, or destroy information on a host. Additional data relating to the type of operating system or environment and the status of the port can also be obtained. However, unless the remote address is authenticated, access will typically not be granted. Various conventional authentication techniques are used to prevent access by a remote address but still provide vulnerability information that can be used in an attack on a host. Data traffic to a particular port on a host can be observed, “sniffed,” or replayed in order to gain access to a host. Conventional authentication techniques, such as behavioral combinations, passwords, shared secrets, or pre-defined authorized IP addresses do not prevent the revelation of information to determine a host system services configuration. In order to prevent this type of exploitation, a network administrator must implement burdensome and expensive countermeasures.
Typical countermeasures include firewalls, virus detection software, and conventional authentication techniques. However, these countermeasures are often costly and place significant resource burdens on hosts (e.g., server and personal firewall, proxy servers, blocking and other security software).
Thus, there is a need for securely and remotely accessing a host while preventing network discovery of system services configured on the host. There is also a need for a solution to prevent unauthenticated remote addresses from gaining access to a host by observing an authenticated connection.